Meeting between the Presidents of Ukraine and Belarus: The Ukrainian-Belarusian border will never be a border of war

21 July 2017 - 15:56

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko expressed gratitude to President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko for his support and understanding of the problems our country had faced.

“Today, I have once again been reassured by you, Mr. President, that the territory of friendly Belarus would never be used for aggressive actions against Ukraine and the Ukrainian-Belarusian border would never be a border of war,” the Head of State said.

President Poroshenko noted that Ukrainian-Belarusian border “will always be a border of cooperation and peace”.

The Head of State emphasized that an important step on that path would be the completion of the process of its legal registration, which was discussed today by the parties. The renewed Joint Ukraine-Belarus Demarcation Commission has already received relevant instructions today.

“We have conducted fruitful, meaningful and sincere negotiations with the President of Belarus,” the Head of State stressed.

In his turn, the President of Belarus said: “You, Ukrainians, should know that you have close and native people who live a bit to the north of you. If you face troubles, we will do everything possible to help”.

Alexander Lukashenko reminded a historic example when Ukrainians fled from Holodomor of 1930s to Belarus. “We helped many people. Some of them stayed in Belarus, some of them got back to Ukraine. This is symbolic. And Belarus cannot abandon that,” the President of Belarus said. He also added: “You can count on us. And we will do everything possible for peace and stability in our native Ukraine”.

“We have coordinated approaches to the further development of the cross-border cooperation, which is completely natural given our common state border which is over 1000-km long,” the President of Belarus said.